But as the day advanced endurance was sorely tried. Without rudder to steer the little car, or oar to propel, the sufferers could not shut out the prospect before them of almost certain death. The perpetual baling out of the water which leaked into their crazy boat, became an exhausting effort which their fainting frames could not for many hours sustain. Even Augustine’s features began to acquire the rigid sternness of despair; and the earl, in silent supplication, commended a young widow to God.
Suddenly Mabel exclaimed with wild transport: “A sail, a sail in the horizon!”
“But a sea-gull floating on the waves,” replied Augustine, shading his eyes with his hand from the glare of a meridian sun.
The earl stretched out his blue corpse-like fingers in the direction indicated by Mabel, and then, raising his hand on high, exclaimed, “It is a sail—help is near—God be praised! God be praised!”
Then followed a time of intense, almost maddening excitement. Augustine stood erect in the car, his tall form raised to its utmost height, as he waved again and again a kerchief as a signal of distress.
“Oh, if they should not see it!” exclaimed Mabel
“Or seeing, disregard it,” murmured the earl.
Again and again a shrill cry for help sounded over the blue expanse. If the freshening breeze bore back that cry, so that it reached not the ears for which it was intended, that same breeze was filling the canvas and bringing near and more near the wished for,—the prayed for relief!
“I think that they see us!” cried Augustine, for the first time during that terrible day a gleam of joy relaxing his features.
“Oh, my beloved father—my own Ida—shall I behold you again!” exclaimed Mabel.